3 years ago

Heroic Shliach’s Daring Dash Under Fire Brings Food for Purim to Ukraine’s Besieged Kherson

Rabbi Yosef Wolff drives through roadblocks to Crimean border, dodging bullets, to deliver food, medicines, to Russian-occupied city where supplies running out

Times of Israel

A rabbi’s daring and dangerous dash to bring food from the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula to the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson will ensure that the Jewish community there has enough to eat during the Purim festival next week.

Kherson, a port city on the Black Sea and the Dnieper River, just over 200 kilometers (126 miles) east of Odesa, is the only regional capital to have fallen to the Russians since they invaded on February 24.

According to Alexander Vainer, Director of the city’s Hesed Center which provides social services to needy Jews, the Russians have set up five military posts on the outskirts of Kherson and are not allowing anyone to enter or leave.

A humanitarian emergency has been building, with no food or medicines in the stores, shortages of bread, shuttered banks, and no public transportation.

On Wednesday, the chief rabbi of the Kherson region, Yosef Wolff, turned to Vainer asking for help to find transportation.

Wolff’s brother Benaya, from Sevastopol, in Russian-controlled Crimea, had managed to collect 1.5 tons of food, medicines, warm clothing, Purim gifts, and whatever else he could find against a backdrop of growing shortages there as well, and was on his way in a van to Armyansk, a town on the border between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Kherson.

Vainer and his staff called about a dozen transportation companies but none were willing to cross the severely damaged Antonovskiy Bridge over the Dnieper River, nor to drive through territory marked by multiple checkpoints where fierce battles have been raging.

With no alternative, Vainer offered to provide Hesed’s own van and to take all the seats out.

Wolff himself took the wheel, setting off for Armyansk with an Israeli flag flying from the vehicle.

He returned to Kherson at 8.30 a.m. on Thursday after a voyage from hell.

According to Vainer, Wolff appeared to be in shock. His car had been fired on.

He had planned to transfer the goods from his brother’s van in Armyansk at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, but delays there meant he could not load up until 8 p.m., the hour that a curfew is imposed until 6 a.m. the following morning.

Despite this, he began to drive shortly after 8 p.m., covering a short distance until he reached a checkpoint near Kalanchak.

“They started shooting at his car,” Vainer said. “He got out and they made him lie flat on the ground. Then some kind of commander came and discussions were held. They picked him up and ordered him to park the van in a village some 10 kilometers (six miles) away from the road until morning. At 6 a.m. the next day, he started moving again, passed through all the checkpoints, and made it to Kherson.”

“He arrived exhausted, but he made it, he accomplished the mission, bringing humanitarian aid and Purim gifts to the Jewish community — about 12 sacks of potatoes, various kinds of nuts, four boxes of eggs, and medications — everything that could be bought from this far-away Russian-controlled city was brought in, so that our community will celebrate Purim with real gifts, food, and medicine, as it should be.”

Purim, to be held this year from March 16 to 17, is supposed to be a joyous occasion to commemorate the salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from a plot to annihilate it.